beautiful zion a book of the dead

Boneyards EVP Log – 11/3/13

Before proceeding I strongly urge you to read and hear the 10/20/13 seance transcript and video regarding the “Buddhist exorcism” the audience and I attempted to conduct in an effort to help “V,” the spirit of a 2-year-old toddler, escape and pass through the door to Heaven in accordance with the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

During the next show on 11/2/13 I was happy not to have heard from V, as it hopefully meant our so-called exorcism was successful and she moved forward.

Boy was I wrong. The following (and final) show on 11/3/13 left me completely floored. This is one of those good Ouija board stories. No possessed kittens, no dire warnings of doom, but a truly positive and spiritual experience. The Ouija board at its best. Read on…

Before proceeding I strongly urge you to read and hear the 10/20/13 seance transcript and video regarding the “Buddhist exorcism” the audience and I attempted to conduct in an effort to help “V,” the spirit of a 2-year-old toddler, escape and pass through the door to Heaven in accordance with the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

During the next show on 11/2/13 I was happy not to have heard from V, as it hopefully meant our so-called exorcism was successful and she moved forward.

Boy was I wrong. The following (and final) show on 11/3/13 left me completely floored. This is one of those good Ouija board stories. No possessed kittens, no dire warnings of doom, but a truly positive and spiritual experience. The Ouija board at its best. Read on… Continue reading “Boneyards EVP Log – 11/3/13”

Boneyards EVP Log – 11/2/13

Ghost: “We’re human.” The Saturday night audience was a full house of Halloween weekend and Day of the Dead revelers. At the closing seance, bold audience volunteers Mike, Mel and Tara personed the Ouija board. The planchette was shooting all over the place but sadly all we got was strings of consonants over and over which made for a frustrating experience. It did confirm that it was not alone and that there were 7 of them in the room with us at that moment. If you’ve been following the previous seance posts you know there are at least 12 spirits (or subconscious ideomotor impulses, depending on your beliefs) in the building whom I have affectionately dubbed the Synagogue Saints. It’s not unusual for all 12 of them not to make a showing at once.

The Hindu God Shiva, or Mahakala as the Tibetan Buddhists call him, is a prominent presence in the show.

The Saturday night audience was a full house of Halloween weekend and Day of the Dead revelers. At the closing seance, bold audience volunteers Mike, Mel and Tara personed the Ouija board. The planchette was shooting all over the place but sadly all we got was strings of consonants over and over which made for a frustrating experience. It did say when I asked what it thought of the show, CLAP. Also it confirmed that it was not alone and that there were 7 of them in the room with us at that moment. If you’ve been following the previous seance posts you know there are at least 12 spirits (or subconscious ideomotor impulses, depending on your beliefs) in the building whom I have affectionately dubbed the Synagogue Saints. It’s not unusual for all 12 of them not to make a showing at once.

(Personally I was thrilled not to hear from little V, because if she had made a showing it would mean our haunting Buddhist exorcism in the previous show had been a failure. I urge you to read/watch that now, and then to read what happened in the Earth-shattering final session on 11/3/13.)

While the Ouija session continued I fired up the P-SB7 spirit box as usual, and here are the highlights. The raw footage is 7.5 minutes. I have cut it down here to the most clearly spoken minute of highlights. Each has been slowed down and had the volume amplified while maintaining the original pitch, for better ease of listening. Transcript with my comments follows below the video: Continue reading “Boneyards EVP Log – 11/2/13”

Supernatural Skeptics Don’t Know What They’re Missing

“I try contacting the spirit world before live audiences to keep an element of hope simmering on the back burner of my mind.”- playwright and performance artist Jeffrey Stanley

On Faith

Supernatural Skeptics Don’t Know What They’re Missing
by Jeffrey Stanley

These ghosts are primed and ready to provide a ghoulish Halloween on the 500 block of Summit Ave in Jenkintown.

I like Ouija boards. I’ve used them since I was a teenager. More recently I’ve messed around with electric spirit boxes, also known as Frank’s boxes after their inventor Frank Sumption. They’re radio receivers which allow you to listen to and record voices of the dead, also known as EVPs (Electronic Voice Phenomena) or Raudive voices, after one of their early discoverers. Over the past two years I have frequently used Ouija boards and spirit boxes in my performance art, attempting to conjure up the dead as my co-stars before a live audience. At one of the universities where I teach playwriting and screenwriting part-time I am also the faculty adviser for a student-led paranormal investigation club. Friends and fans assume I am a true believer but the truth is that I am not. I am a healthy skeptic. And that’s depressing for me because it means that on some level I feel certain there’s nothing out there. I try contacting the spirit world before live audiences to keep an element of hope simmering on the back burner of my mind.

Given the many millions of religious folks in the world (surveys tell us time and again that the vast majority of us believe in an afterlife) I am not alone in my desire for proof of a promise made long ago. I don’t want to be told it by a clergyman or a book or a website. I want to see it. Because of the world’s overwhelming belief in an afterlife I am always amazed at the number of people who are absolutely petrified of Ouija boards. Shouldn’t we be elated when the pointer, properly called a planchette, moves and spells out things? Shouldn’t we jump for joy when a spirit box calls out to us? Instead we flee in terror at the most innocuous of communications. I’m reminded of my good friend Steve who received a strict Catholic upbringing. Once as a teenager he played around with a Ouija board and it spelled out his dog’s name: HOBO. He ran shrieking from the room,

Boneyards Final Shows This Weekend

Come wake the dead. Jeffrey Staney’s BONEYARDS returns for 2 final shows this Saturday and Sunday 11/2 and 11/3. Meanwhile please enjoy Stanley’s latest religion article in today’s Washington Post about my experiences contacting the dead as performance art over the past few years.

Come wake the dead. BONEYARDS returns for 2 final shows this Saturday and Sunday 11/2 and 11/3 in Philadelphia. Times and tickets.

Meanwhile please enjoy my latest article in today’s Washington Post about my theatrical experiments in contacting the dead as performance art over the past two years. Thank you for your support and patronage, and Happy Halloween.

October 31, 2013

On Faith
Supernatural Skeptics Don’t Know What They’re Missing
by Jeffrey Stanley

I try contacting the spirit world before live audiences to keep an element of hope simmering on the back burner of my mind.

And also out today from Drexel University a story about the PIG of which I’m the proud faculty adviser…

Drexel Paranormal Investigators Haunted by the Unknown
by Alissa Falcone
…It doesn’t hurt that the group’s faculty adviser also has an interest with the undead: By day, Jeffrey Stanley teaches classes in the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design’s Screenwriting and Playwriting Department, but at night he transforms into undead residents of cemeteries from all over the world during “Boneyards,” his performance that imagines supernatural comic monologues.CONT’D at drexel.edu>>

Boneyards EVP Log – 10/20/13

Ghost: “Come to us.” Before proceeding I urge you, gentle reader, to read and view the previous show’s (10/17/13) seance summary as there is a direct carryover with this one culminating in my effort to conduct a “Buddhist exorcism,” for lack of a better description, on the 2-year-old “V,” a recent arrival at the synagogue and not one of the 12 original ghosts at this location that I call the Synagogue Saints.

All caught up now? Great, you may proceed.

Before proceeding I urge you, gentle reader, to read and view the previous show’s (10/17/13) seance summary as there is a direct carryover with this one culminating in my effort to conduct a “Buddhist exorcism,” for lack of a better description, on the 2-year-old “V,” a recent arrival at the synagogue and not one of the 12 original ghosts at this location that I call the Synagogue Saints.

All caught up now? Great, you may proceed. At the show’s climax audience volunteers Eric and Kristen personed the board. We at first assumed we were speaking with an adult spirit (or subconscious ideomotor impulse, depending on your beliefs) but then it kept spelling MAM, MAM, MAM over and over. At first we thought it was their initials but it told us NO.

Do you know anyone here? YES.

Who? LAURA.

Yep, there was indeed a Laura in the house who looked decidedly freaked at seeing her name spelled out on the Ouija board. How do you know Laura?

The response was more MAM over and over again.

LAURA: I don’t know anyone with those initials.

ME: It’s talking like a child saying the same word over and over. I think we’ve got a kid here.

MY USHER SUSAN: Do you mean MOM? YES … MAM, MAM, MAM.

Indeed the repetition was childlike and rather sad. We imagined a young child calling for its mother over and over and not sure how to spell it. This is extremely similar to my encounter with young MALA/MALALA 2 years ago during BZ:ABOTD who wound up following me from the Blue Grotto in West Philly to Plays & Players Theatre and taking up residence there but that’s another story. In short, it seems children who have died violent deaths are particularly frightened and stuck, not sure how to move on. Heartbreakingly, they especially want to find their mothers.

Where’s your real mom? KILLED.

Who killed her? Continue reading “Boneyards EVP Log – 10/20/13”